The Gentle, Jealous God: Reading Euripides’ Bacchae in English by Simon Perris (review)

The Gentle, Jealous God raises two key questions of interest to anyone who has taught or read classics in translation: “What do English translations of Bacchae have to say? And why should we care?” (169). Perris responds with a carefully researched study of Euripides’ masterpiece and its reception, and an engaging close reading of seven distinct English translations of it. Thus, his subject is not only the history of this tragedy, but also the social, intellectual, and cultural contexts that have influenced its interpretation in the Anglophone world.

Leading his reader like a trusted tour guide through a museum of words, Perris begins with an introduction that addresses theories of translation; a chapter on Bacchae and Dionysus in their historical context; and one that offers an overview of the many subsequent musical, literary, theatrical, and cinematic treatments of Euripides’ tragedy, from the 1703 opera Penthée to the 2011 Hūrai (Māori for “Jews”). He then turns to his central focus: the translations of Gilbert Murray (1902), H. D. [Hilda Doolittle] (1931), Derek Mahon (1991), Colin Teevan (2002), David Greig (2007), Robin Robertson (2014), and Anne Carson (2015). Through his lucid analysis of these works, Perris argues for the continued relevance of Bacchae and its theatre god, as he illustrates the varied cultural interests to which the play has appealed over the centuries.

Of particular value to students and teachers will be his definition of critical terms (a glossary is provided) and his demonstration of literary figures of speech. For example, in his discussion of Greig’s Bacchae, he Perris (138) identifies the use of “alliteration, sibilance, w sounds, diphthongs, and sinuous internal rhyme to describe the maenads playing with snakes: ‘ . . . dappled dresses with / Live snakes which willingly wound round / Their waists and even sometimes seemed / To kiss them,’(45).” Also of use to students and teachers will be his survey of Bacchae’s reception in a variety of genres, and the occasional side-by-side comparisons of translations, such as when he examines a single line from the chorus (ὦναξ Βρόμιε, θεὸς φαίνῃ μέγας, Ba. 1031) as it appears in seven distinct translations (120). Although classicists may be disappointed that the book does not show the Greek beside the English, Perris nevertheless confirms that words, even those in translation, matter.

This poetic sensitivity to the beauty of language is a strength that literary scholars especially will enjoy. Theatre and performance scholars, however, may find the book less rewarding. This audience will appreciate Perris’s demonstration of the importance of translation history to performance history, but may not find his approach to translation itself as valuable. He references theories of translation and adaptation that have a literary focus, such as Linda Hutcheon’s A Theory of Adaptation (New York 2006), Julie Sanders’ Adaptation and Appropriation (London 2006), and Matthew Reynolds’ The Poetry of Translation (New York 2011); yet despite his brief reference to Katja Krebs’s Translation and Adaptation in Theatre and Film (New York and London 2013), Perris does not fully explore performance-based theories, for example those documented in the various articles of Theatre Journal’s special issues on Translation (59.3, October 2007) and Adaptation (66.4, December 2014). Moreover, exactly how Perris sees the relationship between translation and performance is unclear. He touches on the subject when he refers to the compromise between the “nominal authenticity” of the National Theatre’s performance and the “expressive authenticity” of Teevan’s translation (129), and when he states that the combination of Greig’s creation of “one of the campest most oversexed gods in theatre since Dionysus in 69” (141) combined with Alan Cumming’s performance of him can lead to Pentheus’ cross-dressing scene being played out “like an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (with shades of The Rocky Horror Show and Cabaret)” (142). However, these observations left me wanting more. What is the difference, for example, in the resonance of...